Tola (unit)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Tola (disambiguation).
Silver rupee coins, issued by the British East India Company, were a practical standard for the tola.
400 tolas
British Indian units of mass
Mughal Empire
Bengal Presidency
Regulation VII 1833 fixed the mass of one tola as 180 troy grains (11.663 8038 grams)
Bombay Presidency
The maund was fixed at 28 pounds avoirdupois (¼ hundredweight) (12.700 586 36 kilograms)
Madras Presidency
The maund was fixed at 25 pounds avoirdupois (11.339 809 25 kilograms)

The tola (

troy ounce. It was the base unit of mass in the British Indian system of weights and measures introduced in 1833, although it had been in use for much longer.[1] It was also used in Aden and Zanzibar: in the latter, one tola was equivalent to 175.90 troy grains (0.97722222 British tolas, or 11.33980925 grams).[2]

The tola is a

British East India Company issued a silver rupee coin of 180 troy grains, and this became the practical standard mass for the tola well into the 20th century.[7]

A set of tolas

The British tola of 180 troy grains (from 1833) can be seen as more of a standardisation than a redefinition: the previous standard in the Bengal Presidency, the system of "sicca weights", was the mass of one Murshidabad rupee, 179.666 troy grains.[1] For the larger weights used in commerce (in the Bengal Presidency), the variation in the pre-1833 standards was found to be greater than the adjustment.[1]

The tola formed the base for units of mass under the British Indian system, and was also the standard measure of

Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf
(GCC) countries.

Tola is still used as a measure of charas (Indian hashish).[10] On the black market, however, one tola equals a mass of ~10g and not the actual mass of one tola.

See also

  • Troy ounce

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Prinsep, James (1840), Useful tables, forming an appendix to the Journal of the Asiatic Society: part the first, Coins, weights, and measures of British India (2nd ed.), Calcutta: Bishop's College Press, pp. 65–74, 79–90.
  2. ^ tola, Sizes, Inc.
  3. ^ Platts, John T. (1884), A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English, London: W. H. Allen & Co., p. 344, archived from the original on 2012-05-27.
  4. ^ Martin, Robert Montgomery. Statistics of the colonies of the British empire, London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1839, p. 143.
  5. ^ Prinsep (1840), pp. 45–53.
  6. ^ Mughal Coinage, RBI Monetary Museum, archived from the original on 2008-05-16, retrieved 2008-05-04.
  7. S2CID 4136423
  8. ^ Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1956 (No. 89 of 1956) Archived 2009-09-28 at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ^ Green, Timothy (1970). The world of gold. Simon and Schuster. pp. 103, 179.
  10. ^ David Hooper, F.C.S., F.L.S. (September 19, 1908). "Charas of Indian Hemp". Pharmaceutical Journal: A Weekly Record of Pharmacy and Allied Sciences. J. Churchill: 347.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tola.

The external links provided below serve as invaluable resources for accessing up-to-date prices of units such as Gram and Tola. The Tola unit converter and Gold Calculator are particularly noteworthy tools for users seeking precise conversions and pricing information. These resources offer convenience and accuracy, making them essential for anyone interested in monitoring market rates. For further exploration, readers can refer to the corresponding Wikipedia articles on Tola and Gram to gain a comprehensive understanding of these measurement units within the context of weight and precious metals.

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